In my previous post I suggested some tools for choosing meeting and event times. Once you’ve chosen a date for a school/ classroom event, you might need to organize volunteers who are helping with the event. This could mean organizing volunteer roles or organizing contributions so that you don’t end up with 100 paper cups and no paper plates at your classroom party. The following three tools will help you coordinate contributions to your school or classroom event.

GroupTing is a service that makes it easy to organize group events. The purpose of GroupTing is to enable you and your event attendees to keep track of who is attending your event and what they are bringing to it. For example, if I’m planning a classroom party and I need parents to contribute cups, beverages, snacks, plates and napkins, when I send out my invitations I can request that people bring one or more of those items. GroupTing allows me to specify how many of each item is needed and who has volunteered to bring the requested items.

Choice Eliminator is a Google Forms Add-on that removes response choices from your form as they are used up. This can be handy when you are having people complete a Google Form in order to select meeting times with you or you’re having them complete a form to indicate what they are sending into school for a class party. To use Choice Eliminator start by creating your Google Form as you normally would. Then enable Choice Eliminator on your Form. Once Choice Eliminator is enabled you can select the question or questions that you want to have choices removed from as they are used.

Volunteer Spot is a free scheduling service that teachers, coaches, and others and use to coordinate volunteers. Volunteer Spot gives you the ability to post calendars and sign-up sheets online. When potential volunteers visitor your calendar they can see the days and times at which volunteers are needed. You can also use Volunteer Spot to coordinate sign-ups for contributions to an event. For example, you can use Volunteer Spot to have people sign-up to bring specific items from a list of needed items. When the quota for volunteers for a particular time, day, or item is reached, Volunteer Spot won’t allow any more sign-ups.